Sine
@sinea
24 okur puanı
Ocak 2021 tarihinde katıldı
Şu anda okuduğu kitap
As adults, habitually seeking to control children’s bodies can be so ingrained in us that we don’t even really notice it. This might look like a teacher insisting on ‘eyes on me’, a parent pushing their child to take ‘one more bite’, or a gallery assistant telling children to be quiet in an exhibit.
Starting to pay attention to these moments — and asking ourselves how it would feel for us if our bosses were asking us to sit ‘criss-cross apple sauce’ when we had a team meeting, or if we’d enjoy it if our partner told us we were only allowed to eat one biscuit — can help us to pay attention to what is truly needed, such as stopping children rushing into a busy road, and which is more of an ingrained habit that reinforces adultist power dynamics.
Like other forms of discrimination, adultism is a structural issue. This means it goes deeper than individual action (though individuals still have a responsibility to tackle adultism), with discrimination embedded in social structures, systems, and institutions, and often passed down from generation to generation. However, adultism also occupies a unique space as all adults were once children, and most children will become adults; children generally move from the oppressed class into the oppressing one as they move into adulthood.
Children are often spoken about as a problem to solve, as if they are disruptive to adult life, particularly in conversations about childcare. Many of us live in societies where having a child does make life harder, with inadequate support for parents and a lack of social networks with whom to share the work of parenting. But our focus and criticism should lie squarely with these systems, not on children themselves.
It’s considered totally normal to use disparaging language when describing children, with terms such as brats, monsters, the ‘terrible twos’, and ‘threenagers’ (this last one managing to critique both teens and young children at once; both groups get an especially rough deal in the way they are talked about). We also see children’s lower social status reflected in the language we use when addressing other adults: ‘That was pretty childish of you,’ we might say to a friend acting inappropriately, or even ‘don’t be such a child’. And when we feel our autonomy is being ignored: ‘Don’t infantilise me.’
Adultism shows up in things like ‘no children’ signs in shops and the Mosquito alarms used as ‘teenager repellent’. Marketed at residents and small-business owners who want to prevent teenagers from gathering in public, these dystopian-sounding devices work by emitting a high frequency tone that adults cannot hear but which is unbearable to young people. Can you imagine it being socially acceptable for something like this to be sold targeting any other group of people?